City Immigrants—Old and New

CITY IMMIGRANTS-OLD AND NEW Gary Ross Mormino. Immigrants on the Hill: ItalianAmericans in St. Louis, 1882-1982. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. xi + 289 pp. Illus. Nancy Foner, ed. New Immigrants in New York. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. ix + 318 pp. Marian C. McKenna Immigrants on the Hill is an intensive, readable and entertaining examination of immigrants and ethnic accommodation at the local level, specifically of Italians in the Cheltenham district of St. Louis from the era of mass European migration to the present. The book traces the emergence of a unique Italian-American neighborhood in the district called "Dago Hill," considered one of the most stable, immobile and cohesive ethnic communities in the United States. In coming to St. Louis, the author insists, Italian immigrants were not uprooted, but transplanted, and allowed to shape their lives with a minimum of interference from the world outside. Mormino attempts to transcend raw statistics and portray flesh-and-blood immigrants, not as victims of a tragedy, but rather as agents of change and architects of their own destiny. To a surprising degree, this attempt is successful. Placing his study squarely within the framework of mainstream historical scholarship , the writer offers a revisionist interpretation that will be read and enjoyed by scholars and the general public alike. The early chapters are vivid in their evocation of life in the villages of northern Italy which, after 1880, began to experience "the human volcano"-mass emigration to America. No mention is made here of the traditional distinction in older immigrant histories between the "old" immigration from northern Europe and the "new" immigration, mainly from southern European sources. The original immigrants to the Mound City were almost exclusively from Cuggiono, a small town in Lombardy, and they were soon joined by Sicilians, leading to the 360 Marian C. McKenna kinds of inter-ethnic rivalries that often characterized such close-knit urban communities. The ''push'' factor in this emigration, according to Mormino, was the plight of the contadini (peasants), the "torturous conditions" that prevailed on the rice plantations, devastating plagues (1635 and 1735), and shrinking opportunities because the land could not support the burgeoning populations of the nineteenth century. These conditions forced breadwinners to become migrant laborers, seeking opportunities first in other European countries, and finally joining the tide which eventually channeled millions of Italians to a new life in America. Cuggiono offers a classic example of chain immigration, linking individuals and groups to specific economic niches and settlement patterns. Between 1881 and 1931, Cuggiono recorded an absolute loss of population from 6,105 to 4,475 at a time when more than 200 other towns and villages in the region surveyed by the author recorded impressive gains. There were other, more compelling "push" factors, according to Mormino's research. Absentee landlords held ninety percent of the land in late nineteenthcentury Lombardy; blight ruined the grapes in the 1850s; crippling tariffs were imposed on a wide range of agricultural products; and there was increasing competition from agrarian sectors, followed by a devastating late nineteenthcentury drought. A quiet form of desperation resulted in the introduction of silkworm cultivation, a source of poorly-paid employment and unhealthy working conditions for women and children. Silk culture proved adaptable in Lombardy, but seems not to have prospered widely. Yet, after compiling all this evidence, the author concludes that emigration from Cuggiono did not occur wi~in the crude confines of the simple ''push-pull'' model. The chain migration phenomenon was not the result of economic forces alone. But the reader is left to wonder what other forces, besides economic deprivation, fuelled this migration. "Regardless of motivation," he writes, '' Cuggionosi left Italy in torrents. If a deteriorating economy pushed Lombardy to the brink of rebellion, the Hill pulled them over the brink to America.'' The ensuing chapters are devoted to politics, religious life, employment opportunities, prohibition (a "still on the hill") and sports in the St. Louis community. For sources, Mormino relies heavily on secondary works and articles in history and sociology. There are a number of interesting comparisons qf the Hill with other Italian neighborhoods as portrayed by Humbert Nelli in Chicago, by Josef Barton in Cleveland...